Comme ça du Japon

If you happen to live in Japan for a while, you will soon or later have to deal with the ザ・法典 (Za HôTen) “Great Book of Rules”. If it’s written in the Great Book of Rules, you can forget about invoking the common sense in a discussion. There is no discussion to have about the validity of a rule. If others have decided a rule, they did so for a good 理由 (RiYû) “reason” whatever that can be. You are also guaranteed to be the only person to care about said reason so don’t bother asking. Anyway a rule is not to be explained but applied.

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Let me remember… It was a saturday and my little tribe and I were out for Tôkyô. The trip was an easy one as there was only one change. While the first train was 鮨詰め (SuShiDuMe) “sushi-packed”, the second train arrived empty. I could not put my finger on it but there was something different about this train.

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I read a quite disturbing article in a business magazine. It was one of those 豆知識 (MameChiShiki) “pea + knowledge” short pieces : an attention grabber title, a dense explication with lots of numbers but no conclusion let alone a discussion. Well, for an article written on a 豆 (Mame) “pea” you really can’t expect anything more than that, don’t you think ?

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In response to a comment left on the article about road safety in Japan. A reader asked me if it was true that the オートバイ (O-To BaI) “motorcycles” sold on the japanese market had a limitation on horse power. This was indeed true until recently as 日本自動車工業会 (NiHon JiDôSha KôGyôKai) “the union of vehicles makers” and 国土交通省 (KokuDoKôTsûShô) “the ministry of land, infrastructure and transport” agreed to 廃止 (HaiShi) “drop” said regulation on July the 6th 2007.

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